Hardy Facing Lengthy Appeals, Years Of Waiting On Death Row

Even before Nicholas Hardy's death penalty was announced on Wednesday, his attorneys had filed his appeal.

Nicholas Hardy on Wednesday became the 365th convicted killer to join Florida's Death Row.

In the Palm Beach Circuit courtroom above him, Paul William Scott had yet another hearing to overturn his death penalty. Scott has been on Death Row since 1979 for bludgeoning to death a Boca Raton florist.

Though crime victims often talk about "closure," the wait from sentencing to execution in death penalty cases takes an average of 10 years. One inmate has been on Death Row for 22 years, said Debbie Buchanan of the Department of Corrections.

The widow of Sheriff's Sgt. James "Rocky" Hunt has, at times, railed against the plodding pace of the legal system that took three years to convict and sentence Hardy.

On Wednesday, Judy Hunt said, "I'm just glad this day is over."

But Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer warned Hunt to brace herself to wait some more.

"The unfortunate part of the death penalty is Mrs. Hunt's children will be in college or graduated from college before we see an end to this," Krischer said. Hunt's sons are now 12 and 10.

Hunt said she realizes what's ahead.

"I know there will be a lot of appeals and a lot of years to go through, but Rocky's life was worth this, and Nicholas Hardy deserves to die," she said.

Even before Hardy's death penalty was announced, his attorneys had filed his appeal.

Dean Willbur Jr., one of Hardy's court-appointed attorneys, predicted the Florida Supreme Court will reverse the death sentence. Hardy cannot understand his punishment, Willbur said, having lost more than a third of his brain's frontal lobe during a suicide attempt.

During their efforts to save his life, Hardy's attorneys called witness after witness who described the 21-year-old as a happy child who enjoys board games.

Hardy was no longer the seething teen-ager who killed a police officer during a two-day rampage that included shooting a bicyclist in the back and firing on an occupied pickup truck, they argued.

Hardy bolstered their arguments with his response when a jury convicted him of Hunt's murder on Nov. 3. The first thing he did after returning home to jail was to seek out a ball and paddle.

"He walked in and wanted to know if somebody wanted to play pingpong," Willbur said.

But Krischer said that argument won't hold up because killers with lower IQs than Hardy's have been unable to overturn their death penalties.

Hardy's IQ was 69 after he recovered from shooting himself in the head. A score of 70 or below is legally defined as mental retardation. Defendants with IQs as low as 49 have been on the nation's death rows, one study found.

After completing a state program to make him smarter and able to understand legal procedures, Hardy now is in the 79-81 IQ range.

The lowest IQ of an executed inmate may have been that of Jerome Bowden in Georgia, who scored 65 on his last intelligence test in 1986, U.S. authorities say.

"I tried so hard to do my best," were Bowden's last words to his attorneys. He was talking about the last test given by the state to show his intellect was sufficient to be executed.